There TMM has taken on great importance in the political debate in the United States. Three different points of view confront each other in this issue around this controversial subject.
Modern monetary theory (TMM, or modern monetary theory) took on great importance in the United States political debate during the last presidential election and continues to sustainably fuel discussions on questions of public debt, monetary policy and policy to fight against unemployment. Taking important elements from the ancient writings of George Friedrich Knapp, Abba Lerner and Michael Kalecki, the TMM has been formalized and redeveloped over the last 20 years, notably in the work of Warren Mosler, Stphanie Kelton and Randall Wray. (See here a presentation in French by Cyprien Batut)
One of the most important arguments of the TMM is that a state is free to create money to finance its public deficit. The value of the currency is itself guaranteed by the fact that the currency is accepted by the State to pay taxes. It follows that – as long as inflation remains controllable – it is always possible and desirable to use monetary creation to finance the state and in particular to get rid of unemployment.
works in the political and institutional context specific to the United States, the transposition of the TMM to the European and French cases continues to give rise to lively discussions.
The three texts brought together here provide different points of view on the TMMby being very critical (Franois Facchini) or by discussing it head-on to try to reformulate certain proposals and adapt them – only in part – to different institutional contexts or traditions, whether in the field of monetary policy (Jzabel Couppey-Soubeyran and Pierre Delandre) or unemployment insurance (Cyprien Batut).